Create Your Own Breakfast Skillet

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Let me introduce you to my newest obsession as of late – the breakfast skillet! It all started one day when I had a hankering for some delicata squash and didn’t want to wait for a whole one to roast – since I made that delicious discovery, everything has gone into the skillet. All it takes is a lot of fat and a starchy vegetable, the addition some flavorings, veggies, greens, leftover protein, and boom, you have a delicious one-pan meal. Below I have written a “recipe,” or more accurately the guidelines that I have been following to make these meals. The trick is to get used to the timing of the vegetables, but with a little practice it will become easier. Remember if you are using cast-iron to heat your pan up slowly, as you can overdo it and everything will stick to the pan. I love making skillets because I can use up whatever is in my fridge and I only have one pot to clean at the end of the meal.

Here are some of the skillets I have created this week, left to right:

Mickey Trescott is a cook and one of the bloggers behind Autoimmune Wellness. After recovering from her own struggle with both Celiac and Hashimoto’s disease, adrenal fatigue, and multiple vitamin deficiencies, Mickey started to write about her experience to share with others and help them realize they are not alone in their struggles. She is a certified Nutritional Therapy Practitioner by the Nutritional Therapy Association, and is the author of The Autoimmune Paleo Cookbook, a guide and recipe book for the autoimmune protocol, and AIP Batch Cook, a video-based batch cooking program. You also can find her on Instagram.

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This book contains over 55 recipes for both the elimination and reintroduction phase of the Autoimmune Protocol, plus information on how to achieve balance while healing and tips on tackling the emotional component of a wellness journey.

88 comments

Rachel – I don’t cover the pan. I eat mushrooms, even though I know that Dr. K’s protocol does not include them. I think it is because medicinal mushrooms are a Th1 stimulant which can be problematic for some autoimmune patients. I eliminated them in my original elimination diet and found that they made no difference when I reintroduced. I am Th1 dominant so theoretically they would make me worse, but I haven’t noticed anything. 🙂

I was just wondering how you know if you are Th1 dominant? I have read that most of Hashimoto’s patients are Th1 dominant, but not necessarily all. The lab in our town said they could draw the blood and send it out, but it would cost $1500.00.! Yikes!! Is there a cheaper test available?

Thanks Martin! That is exactly my aim – I am completely in love with cooking and eating, and I refuse to eat the same bland thing day after day. This diet is restrictive, but there are so many delicious and fascinating combinations that can be made with what we can eat. 🙂

That’s exactly how I like to cook some of my fav healthy meals. Whatever veggies and protein I have on hand or a hankering for. The tough part for me is that I use to always have some brown rice or quinoa cooked up and I would add it, now, I’m learning to do without it. But I’m so tierd of hurting and I want a new life and I believe Paleo is the way to better health. Sure do enjoy reading and learning how you and others cook and ideas for what to eat. Thanks!

I made a skillet today based on your guidelines and loved it! thank you for giving me hope with breakfast/brunch meal ideas! i am type 1 diabetic and Hashimoto’s doing AIP and have also discovered that I also need to remove cruciferous veggies as well. I love your blog. SO glad I found you!

Hi Claire, I am also T1d and have Hashitoxichosis. I am fine with cruciferous veggies but need to stay away from strarchy vegetables. They throw my bs way out of whack. I am sad to eliminate sweet potatoes and acorn and butternut squash. You are the first T1d I ahve seen on this site. Have you noticed a difference in your bs levels?

Great guidelines! I made one Asian-inspired skillet today with butternut squash, ginger, scallions, mushrooms, cilantro, turmeric, spinach and left-over roastbeef. It was amazing! Thanks for the inspiration! 🙂

I was gluten free due to my autoimmune but I recently had a couple of week that fell of the wagon, I am extremely bloated and sluggish, have no energy. I know I need to detox and decided to try this autoimmune paleo and it’s ,y second day but aim overwhelmed!!! It’s just so much to remember to not eat and what to eat, and breakfast is the hardest. I am used to have Protein Shake every morning, and now I have no idea what to eat. I am up at 430 and don’t have time to cook in the morning and it’s hard to find recipes…. :-/

I suggest making a big batch of both of these and having them in the freezer to defrost easily in the morning. Eat with some leftover veggies or a piece of fruit. Way better than a protein shake! Good luck!

Botanists tend to classify plants by their sexual organs like flowers and fruit. It is only recently that DNA has been used to make classification more accurate. If you were to look at the flowers and fruit of sweet potatoes vs. regular potatoes you would not see many similarities.

Sweet potatoes are in the Convolvulaceae family, like the morning glory vine, they get large tubular flowers with no separate petals and the stamens splay out from the middle each have a ball on the end, these are followed by small seedpods which are hard, dry and not at all fleshy and generally have about 3 to 6 seeds in each seedpod.

Potatoes are in the Solanaceae family like eggplant and tomato, the flowers are flat, have 5 or 6 separate petals and have stamens which taper to a tip and are clustered into a point in the centre of the flower, the rare occurrence of a fruit on a potato looks a bit like a small green tomato, it is a wet fleshy fruit and has hundreds of seeds per fruit, much like a tomato does, it is also very high in solanine so will probably kill you.

Sarah, people that have issues with fried food may have issues with their gallbladder. Some people use ox bile or nutrients like taurine and beet root to remedy the problem. Lipase can also help in some cases.

Jennifer, that is up to you. I will skim if there is a lot, but I like leaving a little fat in there to satiate me when I consume it. It can be easier to remove after the broth has cooled in the fridge.

You forgot eggs and fish! One of my favourite breakfast is sweet potato, green beans (not very paleo I know) and mackerel, or eggplant (chopped into small pieces and cooked until they almost melt, a bit like sweet potato), tomatoes and crumbled eggs, with lots of herbs (sage, marjoram, basil, whatever I fancy).

Simply looooved your suggestion, so easy – why did I never think of it? I will dive right into AIP today as I foud out that I had reactions to anything sweet and sometimes milk but couldn’t distinguish exactly what makes the problem. I am very happy that I found some breakfast-ideas and recipes which are NOT sweet as I hate sweet breakfast – it is surprisingly hard to find breakfast recipes with no muffin-contents… 🙂 Did my pan with some leftover potatoes, carrots, silverbeet and bacon. First time I ate silverbeet and instantly fell in love with it!

Well it started with a white sweet potato gently cooking in coconut oil; then followed the onion, garlic and ginger; next broccoli and zucchini and some freshly made lamb bone broth; followed by kale and spinach. Actually had this with a piece of baked salmon for my dinner. It was DELISH

I used coconut oil & threw in a sweet potato, mushrooms, broccoli, spinach & a little bit of shredded chicken I had on hand. It was so yummy! I can’t wait to try a new combination tomorrow! Thanks for sharing 🙂

So, I am one of the slowest cooks imaginable – never finish a recipe in the time it should take. Often 50-100% more time. I am about 20 days into AIP and can no longer stand eating most of my meals as leftovers out of containers but I don’t have enough motivation or time to cook each meal before becoming ravenous, so I eat fewer times per day and this is just a vicious cycle – next time I need to cook I’m still unprepared and even more hungry!. The day I had designated for cooking last week was thrown off by a visit to the ER. I had a dream recently of eating real nachos – dairy cheese, corn chips, the whole deal. I know I”m not getting enough nutrients often enough but can’t keep up with this diet! Sometimes I cook a small amount and then still be hungry because I needed a larger portion,, so I’ll cook a bunch of something new and then not be crazy about it. I am ready to throw up my hands…this not being able to eat anything out of a bag, eating almost nothing other than veggies that’s crunchy is driving me bonkers. Any ideas?

Hi- thank you so much for all your helpful insight, information and guidance. I found out I had Hashimitos last summer with the help of an integrative medial praticitioner. With a healthy diet, Naturethroid and a load of vitamins I began to finally feel better- but not the “better” I wanted. I am still very symptomatic and needed to find alternative ways to feel even better and lose this weight I cannot seem to drop. In researching- I found your info- and prepared myself to follow the autoimmune protocol plan, which I began March 1st. The first week was brutal ( no wine, coffee and changing my regular healthy- so I thought diet)… But I have found my stride and feel terrific! It takes a lot of planning and dissapline on my part but feel the energy I have gained and the stomach bloat I have lost are all worth the hard work and efforts. So thank you for laying out the principles so easy to understand and follow.

I do have a few questions – some research I read elimates cruciferius veggies. What are your thoughts on those? It’s already difficult to not eat those yummy night shades (Which WERE my go to snack with homemade hummus)! Also- to really really enjoy the benefits of the AIP – how long should I stay following it? Forever? One month? Two? And what’s the plan to reintroduce food back in?

And about how long to stay on the elimination diet, we recommend 30-90 days for starters, and you want to be feeling better before you start the reintroduction process. The plan is outlined in both mine + Angie’ books as well as The Paleo Approach by Sarah Ballantyne.

[…] way, I’ve come up with dozens, if not hundreds, of combinations (you can check out my post Create Your Own Breakfast Skillet for an idea of where to start with your own experimenting!). Skillets are a perfect way to create a […]

Hi Ingrid, I like to follow an intuitive style of determining serving sizes – if I’m hungry, I eat more, not I eat less. I know that isn’t terribly helpful, and some people have issues that cause them to not be as intuitive about their portions. I like to ballpark estimate about 4 ounces of meat per meal, and then eat vegetables and healthy fats to satiety. So if I made a skillet with 1 pound of ground meat, it would be roughly four meals. Hope it helps!

I just wanted to say how much I appreciate you and honor you for taking the time to answer comments on your posts. Not many people do that…and with blogs like this, where the people reading them are hurting and doing their best to improve their quality of life and make drastic dietary/lifestyle changes, it is even more of a blessing to us. Not just for the ones asking the questions but for those of us who come along afterward and get to read the responses.

So thank you very much for caring enough to help us.

I’m going to try to make some skillets…but I wonder – does anyone REALLY ever have “leftover bacon”? Not at our house lol!

Hey, Mickey, I just want to thank you for this “recipe,” and all the guidance you and Angie give on this website and through your books and podcasts. Autoimmune disease is a hard road, but you ladies make it much, much easier. Thank you so much! I’m cooking up sweet potatoes, onions, asparagus, red chard and leftover lamb meatballs with herbs de provence in some duck fat! Yummy breakfast!

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With five autoimmune diseases between them, Mickey and Angie found their path to better health with the Autoimmune Protocol. Now it’s their mission to share that approach with nourishing recipes, practical resources, and community connections.LEARN MORE>

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